The reason that i picked the image above is quite simple. Under the law a corporation is known as an individual, so why should people not be able to give individual certain characteristics? In addition, the image shows a check list of things that corporations are guilty of doing. If a person cannot associate these individual characteristics to a given corporation then they should not view a corporation as a individual.
Ecologically corporations are unsustainable for a number of reasons. When things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way. A perfect example of this is the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The scale of damage could only be done corporations. You wont see Mom and Pop stores do this amount of damage to the environment. Corporations also use up resources at alarming rates that take long amounts of time to replenish the given resource if that is even possible. Again small companies would not be able to deplete resources at the same pace as compared to corporations. Technically, if you use resources at a slower pace, then the resources should last longer and may be able to replenish themselves.
In regards to the media, corporations cane anything on the media. Disney owns ABC, and as a result Disney can use its power over ABC and force them not to say anything bad about Disney. ABC would not be able to have a news story that shows that Disney is exploiting workers in Haiti by paying their workers nearly nothing.
From an economic view. corporations can tell smaller companies what to do. For example, not a real one, Walmart tells its suppliers that it wants for meat and forces them to add hormones to their animals to increase their meat production. These companies will follow whatever Walmart tells them to do because Walmart buys a large amount of their product and would not do anything to jeopardize their contract. Another economic example is what happened to the banking industry a few years back. As a result of having their financial fingers into way too many "pies," these bands were "too big to fail." If these banks fail, it could result in a economic crash and would result in countless job losses as well.
Limited liability is something important legal principle that businesses should have because of the many risks associated with running a business. However, corporations abuse this notion in regards that they will not be responsible for a high degree of damages the cause. For example, in the Exxon case mentioned above, they were the ones who were responsible for the oil spill however they were only forced to pay a small amount. Of the estimated $600 million that they should have paid, they only paid around $5 million.
Its too hard to track the things that everyone in the corporation is doing. As a result it is an organizational issue that may result in sustainability problems. Even if you say that you want all your factors to go 20% green, you have no real way to track it. If you have hundreds of factories world wide, how do you whether or not the factories followed your orders. I think there was a chemical factory run by GE that was not up to the standards that GE wanted. However according to the CEO of GE, he did not know that the chemical factory that blew up had any issues with it.
Sources:
"Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission." Wikipedia. 9 Mar. 2010
"Exxon Valdez Oil Spill". Wikipedia. 2/25/10 .
The Corporation. Dir. Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. Big Picture Media Corporation, 2004. DVD.
The reason that i picked the image above is quite simple. Under the law a corporation is known as an individual, so why should people not be able to give individual certain characteristics? In addition, the image shows a check list of things that corporations are guilty of doing. If a person cannot associate these individual characteristics to a given corporation then they should not view a corporation as a individual.
Ecologically corporations are unsustainable for a number of reasons. When things go wrong, they go wrong in a big way. A perfect example of this is the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The scale of damage could only be done corporations. You wont see Mom and Pop stores do this amount of damage to the environment. Corporations also use up resources at alarming rates that take long amounts of time to replenish the given resource if that is even possible. Again small companies would not be able to deplete resources at the same pace as compared to corporations. Technically, if you use resources at a slower pace, then the resources should last longer and may be able to replenish themselves.
In regards to the media, corporations cane anything on the media. Disney owns ABC, and as a result Disney can use its power over ABC and force them not to say anything bad about Disney. ABC would not be able to have a news story that shows that Disney is exploiting workers in Haiti by paying their workers nearly nothing.
From an economic view. corporations can tell smaller companies what to do. For example, not a real one, Walmart tells its suppliers that it wants for meat and forces them to add hormones to their animals to increase their meat production. These companies will follow whatever Walmart tells them to do because Walmart buys a large amount of their product and would not do anything to jeopardize their contract. Another economic example is what happened to the banking industry a few years back. As a result of having their financial fingers into way too many "pies," these bands were "too big to fail." If these banks fail, it could result in a economic crash and would result in countless job losses as well.
Limited liability is something important legal principle that businesses should have because of the many risks associated with running a business. However, corporations abuse this notion in regards that they will not be responsible for a high degree of damages the cause. For example, in the Exxon case mentioned above, they were the ones who were responsible for the oil spill however they were only forced to pay a small amount. Of the estimated $600 million that they should have paid, they only paid around $5 million.
Its too hard to track the things that everyone in the corporation is doing. As a result it is an organizational issue that may result in sustainability problems. Even if you say that you want all your factors to go 20% green, you have no real way to track it. If you have hundreds of factories world wide, how do you whether or not the factories followed your orders. I think there was a chemical factory run by GE that was not up to the standards that GE wanted. However according to the CEO of GE, he did not know that the chemical factory that blew up had any issues with it.
Sources:
"Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission." Wikipedia. 9 Mar. 2010
"Exxon Valdez Oil Spill". Wikipedia. 2/25/10 .
The Corporation. Dir. Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. Big Picture Media Corporation, 2004. DVD.
Additional Link: How to "better" Corporations written by me for another class shown on my site
Additional Link: Corporate Media Exposed One of my staff found this video.